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Thursday, January 21, 2010

A Serious Nintendo Wii Problem

(click picture to enlarge)

On January 4, 2010, I said, "I find it pretty crazy that Amazon.com can't keep New Super Mario Bros. Wii...in stock. Amazon.com just yesterday, January 3, had New Super Mario Bros. Wii back in stock, and sold out between last night and today." I finished my "Thoughts" by saying, "If New Super Mario Bros. Wii didn't sell 4.7 million copies in December, Nintendo has a serious problem with meeting demand. The reason I say that is because Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million copies, just on release day."
Well, instead of the 4.7 million units, the number I should have used was 6.07 million units for the entire month.

Doing Background Research
Looking at the NPD sales data for December 2009, New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold 2.82 million units in December. While those are great numbers, they should have been better.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold 2.75 million units combining the PS3 and Xbox 360 sales for December.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's total sales for November/December were 8.82 million units combined, on the PS3 and Xbox 360 not including PC sales.New Super Mario Bros. Wii 's total sales for November/December was 4.21 million units.

According to the NPD's numbers, New Super Mario Bros. Wii was still 4.61 million units behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's console sales at the end of December.

One major reason New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold only 2.82 million units in December

The week before Christmas, I went by Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Game Stop and none of the stores had New Super Mario Bros. Wii in stock! When checking the websites during December, New Super Mario Bros. Wii was either "backordered" or "out-of-stock", as it was for almost the entire last half of December(the picture above shows some of the sites).I believe the reason that New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold only 2.82 million units in December is because people couldn't find the game!

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was never "out-of-stock" or "backordered" on the websites when I was checking on New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Nintendo's Serious Wii Problem
I think one of Nintendo's largest problems is publishing and shipping games. New Super Mario Bros. Wii isn't the only game that's had this problem from Nintendo. Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus have also been "out-of-stock" or "backordered" at different times recently.I don't understand how Nintendo's biggest game for the holiday season of 2009 was continuously "out-of-stock" or "backordered", and it sold only 4.21 million units in November and December.I could understand New Super Mario Bros. Wii being "out-of-stock" and "backordered" if it had sold more than 6.07 million copies in December, but it didn't.

If Activision-Blizzard was able to ship/sell 8.82 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 during the holidays on two consoles, I don't see any reason why Nintendo couldn't do the same.New Super Mario Bros. Wii should never have been "out-of-stock" or "backordered" at any point during the holidays with the sales that have been reported for it.

Questions
Do you think Nintendo has a production/shipping problem? Or do you think Nintendo shipped smaller numbers of the game on purpose?
Do you think there is any justifiable excuse for New Super Mario Bros. Wii to have been "out-of-stock" or "backordered" during the holidays, when it sold less than half the copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?

If you're interested in any of the games mentioned in the article, you can see the games and prices listed below!

6 comments:

This is their pattern, they make a large pressing run, but they are still conservative with their manufacturing runs. Also, a game you cannot find in stock creates buzz and extra demand pressure. People want to know what the fuss is about. Also, as good as NSMBW sold, it is selling at an unpreceidented pace for even a popular Wii game.

I wonder if in some way Nintendo wasn't playing it conservative. They know people love Mario but I don't know if they knew if the "casual" audience would take a bite. I think they believed that online their core supporters would buy New Super Mario Bros. Wii Edition and they didn't want to take the chance.

In all honesty I don't know why they thought that way. I mean look at the sales for New Super Mario Bros DS did. I would have thought they knew this game would sale. I think they also thought that this game would be more apt to have long legs instead of being the instant success that it was because most of their games have been the slow, steady, burners. Well that's my 2 cents anyway.

Do you think Nintendo has a production/shipping problem? Or do you think Nintendo shipped smaller numbers of the game on purpose?Do you think there is any justifiable excuse for New Super Mario Bros. Wii to have been "out-of-stock" or "backordered" during the holidays, when it sold less than half the copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?

I believe nintendo purposefully shipped less number of games to make the game appear more popular than and generate a sense of urgency to gobble the game up when it was available. In one of Seth Godin's book, he says simply, "All marketers are liars." They want you to believe you can't live without their product. So creating this false shortage amplifies this.

So now since NSMBW didn't do as well as COD:MW2, they can just blame it on, "Well we didn't have the game always readily available and in stock.

There is no excuse the game should have been on backorder as it was. It was Christmas season, people buy stuff, Nintendo should have had at least 6 million copies floating around. I think they screwed themselves over. They should have put all the copies out that they could have. That means more people would have bought the game and played it. The more people who play it, they in turn would be free advertisement for Nintendo and tell all their friends and family to buy the game.

Maybe NSMBW should have came with an accessory like a free t-shirt or something. The elite bundle of COD:MW2 came with some night vision goggles. It just made buying that game more intriguing.

@NintendoGamer:NSMB DS should have been a huge clue. I really don't understand this failure.

@Nicodemus at Nite:All I know is, if I was a stock investor in the company, I would want somebody held responsible for this. The company stock is basically where it was, when the Wii was released 3 years ago.

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